


The World Looked Fine

by ShastaFirecracker



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Asexual Character, Canon Compliant, Communication, Consensual Mind Control, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, First Time Blow Jobs, Fluff, M/M, Relationship Discussions, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25132717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShastaFirecracker/pseuds/ShastaFirecracker
Summary: Martin felt physical attraction, and Jon didn't. That was fine. But Martin sublimated himself to others, especially those he loved, by pure instinct. It was a behavior that had a grimy tinge of the Lonely about it, still. Martin wholeheartedly accepted that he would never have sex with Jon, because Jon didn't want to have sex, and Jon's wishes would always come first.Except that Martin had neverasked.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 55
Kudos: 479





	The World Looked Fine

**Author's Note:**

> -arrives to the fandom 15 minutes late with jonmartin- Hi guys what'd I miss
> 
> I was talked into listening. I binged. I laid on the floor for a while being fucked up about it. I hurriedly wrote my own safehouse fic before reading the others I knew must exist. Now I hand it over, in full knowledge that it's not unique, relying on the [Two Cakes theory](https://sqbr.tumblr.com/post/92103436228/the-artist-putting-a-simple-cake-next-to-a-much) to cut me some slack.
> 
> [Lullaby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWVnVmkbSTU&list=OLAK5uy_kGoc2WrdJOKKpu53SkJnIa599yQibCvZQ&index=8) by Electric President

-

_"I woke through clouds of syrup  
The world looked fine  
Bad dreams are nothing special  
They happen all the time"_

It took some time for Jon to get used to kissing. He knew – and also Knew – that Martin needed it. The sort of... communion it was, to him. An affirmation of everything human and real, a source of safety and a soul-deep warmth. To hold Jon's face in his hands and press their lips together, even if only so gently that they weren't doing much more than sharing breath, meant so much to Martin that there was not a cell in Jon's body that could object to participating. Jon was almost certain he was imagining it, but every time Martin kissed him, it felt like Martin's skin became more solid – drew a little further away from the mist of that endless gray sea.

If Jon could do such a profound thing to help, just by going along with a few kisses (okay, not a few, a lot) -

But that wasn't right. He wasn't just _going along with it._ He craved that profound healing just as much as Martin did, and he didn't have a _better_ way to achieve it, after all. The emotional resonance of the act was easy for Jon to sink into, like a soft bed when he was so, so tired. What took time for him to get used to were the physical sensations.

Jon had kissed before, sure. It had felt obligatory. A rote expression of affection that became appropriate at a certain milestone of emotional intimacy in a relationship, the way a handshake was appropriate at first meeting, a touch on the arm some time later, and so on. It hadn't ever carried much weight for him before. He'd kissed his college boyfriend on their second date. It had been... wet. There hadn't been a third date. He'd kissed Georgie sometimes. It had been dry, because Georgie didn't part her lips, and Jon had been glad of that.

It didn't take many kisses for Martin to become the one person Jon has kissed more than any other. The only person Jon has kissed while laughing, and through tears. The only person Jon has allowed to kiss him through mutual morning breath, and in awkward twisted positions while sat close together but engaged in their own tasks. The only person Jon has kissed enough times to actually give him a varied experience of the act. Lips closed, lips parted, tongue or not, that sort of thing.

The closeness was wonderful. The whole business of spit and tongues and teeth was less so, but eventually Jon got a better handle on the nerve endings involved. Learned how to help the pressure and movement feel nice instead of strange. Learned to get over the weird wetness and focus on the tastes and textures. (Sweet bergamot and tannins and skin-salt; stubble prickling Jon's cheek; the gentle vibration in Martin's throat of a swallowed sound. It changed constantly. Jon loved it.)

Sex was the problem, of course. Except that with Martin, sex wasn't a problem. Apparently. Jon didn't need supernatural assistance to understand that Martin wasn't... the same as him. Martin _wanted_ in that way that Jon had long ago understood he was never likely to feel. Just looking at Jon was enough to make Martin feel desire, which echoed from his mind in a way he'd probably be mortified by if he knew that Jon could pick up on it. Not out of embarrassment, really, not anymore, but because he'd probably feel like he'd... violated Jon, somehow, just by thinking about him that way.

 _That_ was the problem. It took Jon a while to realize it, to be able to put it into words to himself. Martin felt physical attraction, and Jon didn't. That was fine. But Martin sublimated himself to others, especially those he loved, by pure instinct. It was a behavior that had a grimy tinge of the Lonely about it, still. Martin wholeheartedly accepted that he would never have sex with Jon, because Jon didn't want to have sex, and Jon's wishes would always come first.

Except that Martin had never _asked._

Jon found himself thinking of Melanie, his stomach twisting with those strange bedfellows, guilt and pride. With hindsight (which still somehow gave more clarity than perfect and complete Knowing granted by some eldritch god), Jon saw and appreciated the relentlessness with which she'd saved herself. She brought herself back from the brink with the same ruthlessness she applied to anything else. Slaughter hadn't been that part of her – that part had always been there, it was why Slaughter reached out to take her hand instead of digging into her throat. So yes, Jon found himself thinking of Melanie, and her therapist, and boundaries.

Boundaries were not something the Eye much cared for. But Jon had plenty of bones to pick with what the Eye wanted, so this could join the pile.

Of course, the idea of having sex still made Jon uncomfortable. But the idea of talking to Martin about the things they wanted, from life and from each other, made him ache so sweetly he could barely catch his breath. Sex was just skin and nerves and reflexes. Not a big deal, in the grand scheme of things.

Jon took an afternoon to steel himself. Martin cooked as best he could in the tiny cabin kitchenette. They didn't have a brimming pantry or exotic options to work with, but Jon had discovered over the last twelve days that Martin was remarkably adept at alchemizing the same elements in new combinations. Martin had mumbled something about lean times, needs must and all that, and blushed hard when Jon complimented his ingenuity.

Jon was sitting at one end of the sofa, legs curled under himself, staring out the window, when Martin pressed a hot bowl into his hands and sat next to him. Shaking himself out of his reverie, Jon started poking at the food mechanically before he took a second to realize what it was.

“How on earth do you do these things,” he muttered at the fragrant, steaming pad thai.

Martin huffed a sheepish laugh around a mouthful of noodles. Swallowing, he said, “Well. There's wild onions growing round back of the cabin. And, uhm, Irene who lives in that farmhouse up the north moor, she keeps chickens. Gave me a few eggs after I chatted with her a bit yesterday. And just, you know.” He shrugged. “Ramen packets, peanut butter... chili sauce, um.” He trailed off.

Jon smiled at Martin, who went pink and applied himself to his food. Jon ate. There was a chill in the highland air, and the noodles were rich and filling, very much a comfort food. Everything Martin made was comfort food.

Jon did his best to suppress his hunger, which kept gnawing on his brainstem and making his fingers tingle with weakness even as he scraped the end of the pad thai around the bowl. His mind wandered to Irene, the neighbor. He wondered about her farm animals. He wondered if she had anything to tell him.

He wrenched himself away from that path with some effort, focusing hard on Martin instead. He flexed his fingers, squeezed his scarred hand in a fist and shook it out. 

Martin glanced at him. “Circulation,” he said.

“Jon,” Martin said softly.

Jon shook his head. “I'm fine,” he lied, because he needed to, and Martin let him.

Martin took the bowls away and Jon listened to the tap running in the kitchen. There was a small telly in the cabin, only local channels with bad signal. Jon didn't use it to watch much of anything, but he turned it on now for the white noise. He flipped stations until he got pure static, no ghostly echoes of a news announcer or QVC. He leaned his head back against the cushions of the sofa. His temples were starting to throb.

It was familiar, now, how Martin settled against his side and tugged him over until he curled up with his cheek on Martin's shoulder, Martin's wild-onion-and-peanut scented breath warming the top of Jon's head. They were nearly of a height, but Martin could make Jon feel comfortably cocooned by limbs with just an arm around his shoulders and one of Jon's legs slung over Martin's knee. Jon tried very hard not to Know, or at least not to acknowledge that he Knew, how Martin felt about his own body. Jon strongly disagreed with the assessment, but it wasn't his place to force Martin to treat himself more kindly. Jon just did what he could in the form of hugging Martin's stomach and sinking against his pillowy warmth.

At length Martin said, quietly, “I wish I could do more.” _I wish I could feed you properly,_ Jon heard.

Jon sighed. “Let it bellyache about going to bed hungry,” he said, injecting what levity he could. “Deserves it.”

He could feel Martin struggling. There wasn't anything to do about the situation, and letting themselves be hurt by it did nothing but burn mental and emotional energy that they were already short on. After a few minutes, he felt some tension go out of Martin's shoulders, the neverending fight for acceptance won once more. This time.

“Martin,” Jon said after a while, drowsy from carbs and comfort.

“Hm?”

Jon chewed his bottom lip for a moment. “I want to – there's something I need to ask and I'm not sure I can – I mean, with how hungry I – it – I don't know if I can _ask_ without, uh.”

Martin kissed the top of his head. “Is it something I won't want to tell you?” he asked, seriously.

Jon considered this. “Yes,” he said, finally. “But I think it would be better aired out than kept in.”

A long moment. “Is it about... big picture stuff? Or us?”

“Us,” Jon whispered.

An even longer moment. Then Martin let out a breath and said, “There may be stuff I find it hard to say, but there isn't anything I'd want to lie to you about. So, go ahead. Maybe it'll help me sort out my own head, you know?”

“Martin -”

“I consent, Jon,” Martin said, squeezing Jon around the shoulders.

Jon's tongue touched his lips. He hated how his belly fluttered with anticipation, straining for any morsel of unearthed secret. He tried to keep his voice level and not eager when he asked, “Do you want to have sex with me?”

The compulsion came out thick and sticky as molasses, Martin's _“Yes”_ wrenched instantly out of his throat like a gasp of pleasure or pain. Against his side, Jon felt Martin go tense and upset. Jon pressed his face into Martin's shoulder, fighting the metaphysical cramping of being fed a single table scrap after weeks of starvation.

They both said “I'm sorry” at once, overlapping. “I'm sorry,” Jon repeated, holding his arm tight around Martin's chest.

Martin took a couple of steadying breaths, then said, “No, don't be. I consented, come on. I know.” He held Jon firmly, and let a minute pass. “Are you okay?” Martin asked.

Jon made a sound in the back of his throat. The question was unanswerable. “Tell me,” he managed to choke out untainted. “Please.”

Martin let out a shaky breath.

_“Please.”_

“I'm okay with it never being a thing,” Martin said, an undercurrent of urgency to his tone.

“I know you are,” Jon assured him, and finally lifted his head. He cupped Martin's cheek and made him meet Jon's eyes. “I want to talk about it,” he told Martin, making himself be firm. “Doesn't have to be now. But I want to talk about it.”

Slowly, Martin relaxed. Jon leaned in and kissed him. It felt more odd than usual, with the verboten subject sitting unearthed in the middle of the room, but after a moment Martin seemed to take it in stride and kissed Jon back. They both tasted like spicy peanut sauce, and it was nice.

After a while, they went back to sitting in huddled silence, awash in the white noise from the telly and the dimming bruise-colored glow of sunset. When the room got very dim, Martin extracted himself with another kiss and went over to shut the curtains and turn on a couple of lamps. “I'm making myself some cocoa,” he said. “Want anything while the kettle's on?”

Jon shook his head and Martin went around the corner. A frizzy, greying lock fell over Jon's eye and he brushed it back, then undid his hair tie altogether and tried to wrangle the mass back into something that looked more hipster than hobo. Out of his face, at least. He got up, roamed the small room's alarmingly large selection of books, and pulled out a memoir. Sometimes nonfiction could get a twinge of satisfaction out of him, although the more people who had read it, the more widely known the information was, the less likely it was to scratch any itch. It wasn't like he cared at all about shark cage diving, but the book he was holding was independently self-published by the author, with exceptionally low sale numbers. It would probably be terrible. But it could also potentially contain some brush with fear which few people already knew about, and that was the best Jon was going to get.

When Martin came back to the sofa with cocoa, he wrinkled his nose in sympathy at the book in Jon's hands. “Any good?” he asked, sitting down.

Jon sneered at the page. The writing quality was unspeakable. Surely even the dread powers had higher standards than this.

Martin laughed. He took a drink of cocoa, then took the book out of Jon's hands and put both it and the mug down on the side table. Jon let it happen, watching Martin's hands. Martin turned to him, one leg under his other knee, elbow on the back of the sofa. “Okay,” he said, looking far more calm than he had before. “Ask me again.”

“What?”

Martin flashed a small smile. “I want to talk about it, too, but I'm also a cheat-y sod so I want to abuse my boyfriend's superpower of making me more eloquent than I actually am.”

Jon barked a laugh. “You sure?”

Martin made an impatient hand gesture.

Jon hesitated, parsing the right words. Slowly, trying to keep the compulsion gentle, he said, “Tell me what you want to do with me. Tell me how it makes you feel.”

A soft exhale escaped Martin and his shoulders relaxed. “I look at your scars all the time,” he said. “I want to ask if you still have sensation in them, or if there's too much nerve damage, especially from the burns. I want to touch every one, kiss them all. Make you writhe with sensitivity, overwhelm you with touch. I know it won't make anything better. I know you're self-conscious about some of them, and that you don't like that much physical contact, and it makes me feel like a shit boyfriend and human being that I don't care. Sometimes if I'm touching your face or shoulder or something, the urge to touch you _more_ is like... a fever. A real... a physical illness that...” Martin was starting to tremble, and the calm preparedness with which he'd sat down was crumbling quickly.

Jon reached out and took his hands and held them tight. “Stop,” he whispered. “Martin. How much of how bad it makes you feel is because you've convinced yourself it's wrong? That you can't have it and you're wrong to want it?”

Martin stared at him, eyes slightly too wet.

“You never asked me,” Jon said, searching Martin's face. “If I wanted that.”

“You... don't? Though?” Martin murmured, voice thick.

Jon sighed. “I... it's never going to occur to me as an independent thought, no. It's never going to pop into my head – 'oh, I wish Martin would, uh. Make me writhe.'” He grinned slightly, feeling absurd, and Martin snorted in agreement. “I'm, uh – asexual and sex-repulsed are two different – I mean, I'm not. Repulsed. And.” He took a quick breath. “I love you. Part of that is wanting to take care of you, you understand?”

But Martin immediately blushed and shook his head. “I don't need – I mean, that's the thing, isn't it? It's not a _need._ So I don't -”

Jon made an impatient noise, cutting him off. “Martin, in what world is, is love just about – needs, anyway?” He looked hard into Martin's widened eyes. “I don't love, uh.” He fished for the right words. “I don't love food because I _need_ it,” he said, finally. “Or air, or water. Love is... wants, and love is choices.”

“Oh,” Martin said quietly. “Yeah. I mean. That's true.”

“I _want_ to... to share things with you, do things with you. I want to make choices. With you. Not have them made for me.”

Martin blanched sheet-white. Jon hated the way his face fell. “I'm sorry -” Martin said, strangled, but Jon leaned forward and caught his face and leaned their foreheads together, saying, “No, no, it's all right, shh.”

Martin took deep breaths. Jon matched them, and stroked Martin's cheek with this thumb. “It's all right,” Jon said again, eventually.

“Okay,” Martin said, still sounding miserable.

“Martin.” Jon licked his lips. “Listen. Next time you, uh. Next time you're thinking about my scars. Tell me. And we can see where it goes. Do you – does that work for you?”

Martin took a deep breath. “Y... yeah. I think it does.”

“Okay,” said Jon, and kissed his boyfriend, who now tasted like chocolate.

It was quite pleasant.

-

The following afternoon, the sky was gray and streaked with drizzling rain. The bedroom, such as it was (a space the Buried might have fun with, given an occupant prone enough to claustrophobia) had a single south-facing window. Full from lunch but still dizzy with hunger, Jon had come in to have a lie-down over an hour ago. Sleep evaded him. He traced his fingers over the smooth plastic box resting on his stomach, outlining buttons and speaker-grille, seeing the device in painful detail with his eyes closed.

Martin got up from the sofa, where he'd been talking quietly on the phone to someone. Probably Basira. The cabin wasn't big enough for privacy, really. Every footstep on the creaking floorboards, every hiss of water from a tap, every flush of the toilet, every cough or sigh or hum was laid out for everyone inside the cabin to hear. “Everyone” only being each other. Jon didn't mind it. He didn't know if it bothered Martin. Perhaps it rubbed the wrong way against Martin's natural isolationist tendencies, but also perhaps that was a good thing. Jon couldn't help thinking that the constant presence of another person could only be a benefit to someone recovering from a dalliance with the Lonely.

The bedroom (such as it was) didn't have a door. Only the tiny bathroom had a door. Still, the bed was placed in such a way that it was out of sight except from the open doorframe itself. Martin walked into that spot, now, and Jon knew the moment he came into view because it was the exact moment at which Martin sighed. Quiet, not accusatory. Just a tiny thing. But still.

Jon didn't wait for Martin to say anything. He picked up the tape recorder and rolled over to put it on the floor, tucked partly under the bed with his bag of clothes. Then he turned back the other way and settled on his side, looking at Martin filling the doorway.

“Hi,” Martin said, mouth quirking up.

“Can't sleep,” Jon said, knowing Martin would ask.

Martin nodded. “Basira's getting some things together for us,” he said, taking the two steps over to the bed and sitting down on it. He shifted, turned to lie down, made himself comfortable facing Jon. “I'll meet her next week. Will that be soon enough, d'you think?”

Jon smiled wanly. “I'm hungry, but I'm not dying. Can't. A week is fine.”

Martin sighed more sharply this time, his mouth twisting into a little pout that Jon found frankly adorable. He smiled wider; couldn't help it. Something in the expression, or in the moment, Jon wasn't sure, wiped the faint lines of care from Martin's face. Made him smile back. It was _soppy._ It was soppy, and horribly saccharine, and Jon's teeth hurt with it. He couldn't remember the last time he was happy.

Knowing scratched at the back of his mind like a feral cat demanding entry. He looked at Martin's eyes, noted how they were tracing his cheek. Oh.

Jon took Martin's hand on the duvet between them and brought it with deliberate care up to touch the pock-marked skin. Martin blinked; his pupils dilated fractionally. He might not have been conscious of his thoughts before, but now that Jon had pointed them out...

“Oh,” Martin said, and slid his fingertip along the ridges and into the small, smooth craters. “So,” Martin breathed, “can you...? Feel that.”

“Yes.”

Martin kept tracing each small, pale circle. There were twenty-three on Jon's face. He hadn't counted them – he just knew.

Jon's hand was still resting lightly on Martin's wrist. When it seemed like Martin wasn't going to go any further, Jon decided to keep nudging. He tugged Martin's hand down the line of his jaw, to his neck.

The worm holes looked like reverse freckles, light on dark, or a strange polka-dot vitiligo. They didn't look like the remnant of life-threatening danger. But his throat? Hard to mistake the intention behind a clear line across the windpipe. Daisy's knife had been very, very sharp. Sharp enough that it seemed a bit odd for the wound to result in a scar at all – the cut had been clean and steady, no hesitation marks. Still, the pale line swept a neat curve over Jon's Adam's apple, bobbing when he swallowed.

The scar was thin, and the pad of Martin's thumb dwarfed it. Jon swallowed again, heartbeat picking up fractionally at the faint pressure in a vulnerable spot. Martin moved his thumb away so fast it was like he'd read Jon's mind. “Okay,” Martin whispered.

“You said you wanted to kiss them,” Jon reminded him.

“Yeah,” Martin said weakly, looking a bit stunned with this turn of events.

Jon sucked his lip into his mouth for a moment, then twisted a bit on the bed, pushing himself upright. Martin rose to an elbow, mouth ajar as though to say something, too distracted to remember what it might be. Jon tugged off his thick cableknit rust-colored jumper, then stripped off the gray vest under it. Had he ever been shirtless in front of Martin before? Surely. Sometime. He cast his mind back. Maybe in hospital? That wasn't exactly a positive association. He held the vest in his clenched hands for a second too long, unprepared for how nervous and at-sea he felt about doing this. Martin made a faint noise in the back of his throat, probably involuntary. Jon tossed the vest aside and laid back down before he could change his mind.

“Okay,” Jon said, a bit hoarse. He cleared his throat.

“Uh,” said Martin, struck dumb.

Jon shivered with a legitimate chill. It was late autumn in the Scottish highlands, of course he did. He quirked a grin at Martin and scooted closer. “At least warm me up,” he said.

Martin huffed a laugh and pulled Jon into an embrace. Martin was plenty warm enough to use as a personal space heater, and Jon burrowed into the heat, pleased as a cat.

The first kiss landed on his temple. Gentle, uncertain. There were two pock marks there. Three on the cheek beneath, one on his jaw, five under his ear. Martin's mouth moved over his skin between kisses, so that Jon could feel the alternating heat and chill of his breath. It felt... odd, but not bad. He found Martin's hand with his again and held it, moved his head up and back when Martin's mouth tracked below his chin. He kissed the line across Jon's windpipe with more certainty, then slid his lips to Jon's pulse point and kissed far more firmly. Licked a little bit. Sucked once.

Jon didn't feel sexual attraction to people but that didn't mean he didn't have nerve endings. The neck kisses tingled in a _very_ nice way. He wouldn't be averse to letting Martin do this more often.

Still, he wouldn't call it arousal, exactly. And it didn't leave him panting for more. He could hear Martin's breath coming more thickly, and he squeezed their clasped hands, encouraging. Martin's realness had never felt so unassailable, his gray fog so far away.

Martin touched the ragged streak of scar on his upper arm. Slaughter's scalpel, still wet with Melanie's blood. The patchwork of burn swirls over his shoulder and down his back, shining in crazed cracking fractals, that had healed that way during his long coma. Everywhere, more worm dots. Eventually Martin reached the melted-looking skin on his hand.

“Hm,” Jon sighed. “That one has the most nerve damage.”

Martin dragged his thumb across the inside of Jon's palm.

“Faint,” Jon said. “Like I'm wearing a leather glove.”

Martin curled the fingers up and kissed Jon's hand anyway.

After dreamlike minutes, Jon found himself tipping onto his back, Martin more and more occupying the space directly above him. More kisses to his neck, then at long last his lips. Jon kissed back with more intensity than he'd thought he was feeling, but apparently the constant barrage of touch was getting to him after all. It wasn't too much, not yet at least. And he rather liked being beneath Martin's warmth and weight. The exact opposite of what the inside of the Buried felt like, in many ways.

Martin slid his knee over Jon's, so their legs were staggered. Jon shifted against the duvet, seeking a more comfortable position for his back. The bed bounced a bit, and full-body contact was unavoidable.

Martin broke the kiss at once with a broken little gasp. Jon had felt the hard line of him clearly, of course, so the way Martin shifted his hips back didn't really help anything. “Sorry,” Martin mumbled, eyes too close to Jon's face for either of them to focus right.

“Why?” Jon asked. Almost disbelieving his own daring, he bent his knee and raised his leg until his thigh pressed no-nonsense against Martin's groin.

Martin made a garbled noise that Jon instantly stored away to treasure. He shifted his thigh, Martin gave a noisy little gasp, and a lot of things clicked cleanly into place for Jon all at once.

“I want to make you come,” Jon said, wonderingly.

Martin squeaked, ears flaming.

“I – oh, _shit.”_ Jon's whole body cramped up and seized back against the duvet as something _filled_ him. Unbidden knowledge that he wasn't prepared to – well, for lack of a better analogy, that he hadn't had time to chew, and was too big to swallow. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth against the squirming feeling of rabid, frothing satiation. He sucked in deep breaths, feeling it slowly settle, like... shreds of flesh at the bottom of a pirahna tank.

“Jon,” he finally heard. Was it the third or fourth time? More? “Jon, Jon,” Martin kept saying, hands on his face, brushing reflexive tears away from under his eyes. They were on their sides again, no weight above Jon, no leg between his, no lips on his skin.

“Er,” Jon managed at last. “Yeah.”

“Jon?”

Jon grunted affirmation and swallowed thickly. He felt... pretty good, actually. Good in a way he was very familiar with by now. “Ah,” he said, understanding.

“Are you okay?” Martin's voice was dreadfully shaky.

Jon cleared his throat. “Well. Hah. Learning something I didn't know about myself is now akin to, hm. Auto-cannibalism.”

There was a long beat of silence. Jon could feel Martin processing what he'd said. When the silence reached a critical mass, Martin made a noise. It was a very articulate noise. Somehow it managed to convey horror, disgust, weak relief, and deep concern all at once. Jon was impressed.

“I agree,” Jon said. He pulled back enough from Martin that he could focus on him. “I guess I shouldn't say 'where were we?'”

Martin coughed a disbelieving laugh. “No, I'm. I think the mood is _quite_ broken.”

Jon snorted, rolled onto his back, and raised a hand to his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It was unfair that he now had more energy than he'd felt in weeks.

“Oof,” Martin said by way of lightening the mood whether the mood wanted lightening or not. “So. Well. What, um... what did you learn, exactly?”

Jon hummed, gazing at the whorls in the paint on the ceiling. “That I _really_ like making you feel good.”

Martin nearly made that squeaking sound again.

Jon laced his fingers together over his stomach. “I wouldn't say it aroused me. But I suppose I've never been physically intimate with someone I... actually _love,_ before now. It feels more profound than I anticipated. I suppose you can make me have an orgasm if you really feel like putting the effort in, but frankly I'm more looking forward to getting you naked and taking you to pieces, because I've never really relished the ability to do so much _to_ someone, _for_ someone, not like – Martin?” Jon pushed up onto his elbow, looking down at Martin with some concern, as the poor man was wheezing with the effort to catch his breath.

“I,” Martin said, strangled. “I, uh. You want to.”

Jon reached over and rubbed his arm comfortingly. “Sorry. That was too much.”

“It was,” Martin wheezed, _“something.”_

Jon couldn't help laughing. The air was still chilly, sent prickles of gooseflesh up his back. He laid down and resumed his earlier position of clingy burrowing, demanding Martin's arms. His back was still exposed. It wasn't ideal.

Martin ran a big, warm palm up and down his spine. Jon knew every vertebra stood out, that his oversized scapulae were like the stumps of severed wings, that the texture of his skin was like the surface of some alien and disgusting planet. But he felt the whisper of Martin's reverence, and it was a little easier to believe that Martin truly enjoyed touching him.

He wanted to return that certainty, even though Martin couldn't skim his mind to know it was true. So he slid his hands under the hem of Martin's worn, slate-gray hoodie.

Martin spasmed under his touch. “Cold!”

Jon grinned into the warm space under Martin's chin and tucked his hands tightly against Martin's sides, squished in by the mattress beneath and Martin's elbow above. Martin shivered, but Jon was sure it was exaggerated for effect.

Jon tried to relax. Maybe get that intended nap after all, now that he wasn't so starving. After a few minutes the awkward position got too much for Martin, though, who sighed and said, “Come on, if you're going to be this way, might as well do it properly.” He sat up, dislodging Jon, and unzipped his hoodie. “Trousers off,” Martin told Jon, whose eyebrows shot up. “And mind out the gutter,” Martin said firmly.

Jon stood and finished stripping down to pants, watching sidelong as Martin did the same. They'd been sharing this bed for two weeks, but always wearing shirts, and in Jon's case also pyjama bottoms and socks, because he really did get very cold. Martin hauled back the duvet and climbed into bed. Jon joined him, and Martin pulled the covers up high, barely leaving their faces out for air.

It was somehow _so_ much warmer than wearing pyjamas. A soft, greedy noise escaped Jon's throat as he resumed the cuddle against Martin's bare chest. Good lord, his skin was soft – and the small of his back radiated heat, so Jon curled his fingers there and it felt like his very bones were thawing. Martin shivered and mumbled something about it tickling, but soon enough he settled, one knee between Jon's legs, chin firm on the crown of Jon's scalp.

“Nap,” Martin told him.

He didn't need to be told twice.

-

Jon had a tense relationship with unstructured time. He had an even more contentious relationship with sleep, especially these days.

So when he woke in the dim bedroom, still groggy and gritty-eyed, utterly adrift from any sense of time, he spent a second in plummetting despair over ruining his day by wasting it in bed. Then he spent another second despairing that he'd ruined his night – if he'd slept all afternoon, he'd be awake through the quiet darkness, that time when night seemed to stretch an hour into a geologic era and the dew-gathering stillness squatted all around like a great damp toad daring you to move, to disturb it and risk the consequences...

Then Martin yawned, his round belly pushing against Jon's side with the inhale. After a moment of quiet, Martin mumbled, “Ah, damn, I'll be up all night now.”

Jon let his eyes slide closed again and could not possibly contain more love. “We have that deck of cards,” he rasped.

Martin sighed. “You cheat.”

Jon jabbed his belly with a sharp elbow. “I have _never.”_

“All-knowing, all-seeing...”

“You have no poker face, Martin.”

With more good-natured bickering, they got up. Jon bundled up in his layers again, the evening having brought a heavier, steadier rain and an all-pervasive damp chill. When Martin simply wrapped the still-warm duvet around himself instead of dressing properly, Jon stole his gray hoodie and added it over his jumper. He didn't miss the flicker of muddled lust and possessiveness when Martin saw him wearing it.

It was half six – they'd slept for hours. Martin's stomach grumbled, so he went to the kitchen in his duvet bundle, hair stuck up on one side from the pillow, and put the kettle on while he made cheese and pickle toasties. Jon was still forbidden from attempting to cook after blackening their only good pan with an immovable crust of carbonized pasta sauce. Apparently Knowing anything he wanted to about cookery didn't help him remember that he'd left a flame on.

Jon put the telly on to the real channels, not white noise, and managed to find an old Western movie, halfway over. They talked about spaghetti Westerns for a while around mouthfuls of sandwich and tea, and Jon was taken aback by how much Martin knew about Italian giallo. Martin huffed an irritated sigh when Jon prodded him about it. “It's not fun anymore,” Martin said. “Bloody Institute.”

“Bloody Institute,” Jon agreed, trying and failing to fight off a grin. “No more Stephen King, I imagine. Clive Barker. Lovecraft?”

Martin made a face. “I was big on P. D. James for a while.”

So they talked mysteries. Police stories were also ruined now, apparently. Jon suggested the softer side of the genre, but Martin said his mum had always liked those cozy cottage mystery novels, the sorts in which a nosy neighbor solved a crime and which had recipes at the end. He went quiet for a while, watching the end of the Western, and Jon laid down with his head in Martin's lap, letting him miss his mother in a small, simple way. Martin had mourned his loss in terms of life-altering impact, sweeping soul-deep truths, and grim and muddy complexities. He hadn't ever really mourned the little things. Ordinary loss was catching up to him.

The movie changed to _My Man Godfrey,_ so old it was public domain, something the local channel probably played a lot because it didn't have to be licensed. But it was still a good film, fun and lighthearted. Jon felt Martin's ache fade until they were both simply enjoying the movie. It felt good not to engage with anything bigger than a tiny screen and a silly story for a couple of hours.

Jon had been half paying attention to Martin's hands in his hair during the film, but when he sat up to stretch afterwards, a handful of small braids that hadn't been there before swung down in front of his glasses. He glanced at Martin, who looked sheepish but unrepentant. The braids weren't secured at the ends and were already partly unraveled. 

“You have lovely hair, Jon,” Martin said, pulling the nicked hair tie off his wrist and offering it back.

Jon rolled his eyes and turned his back to Martin. “Do it properly,” he said.

He could all but hear Martin's big grin when he dug his fingers in and pulled all the messy strands apart. It felt good, hands tugging and smoothing and twisting his hair into place. One thick braid, resting heavy between his shoulders. He wondered if his grandmother would have been horrified at how long it had gotten. Probably.

“When you were in the coma, the nurses said they could cut it, if I said so,” Martin said quietly, fiddling with the end of the braid. “But I didn't want to... change you. I wanted you to get to choose what to do with it.”

“I mean, I've always liked it long,” Jon said. “I had it long in uni, for a while. But after I cut it I could never put up with the wait through that awkward mid-length stage. So. I suppose a coma is one way to solve that problem.”

Martin laughed. “Well. You're welcome, I guess.”

Jon turned around and kissed Martin quickly, startling him. “Thank you,” he said firmly. “For waiting for me.”

Martin sobered at the loaded statement. He looked like he was trying to think of the right thing to say, but after a moment he gave up. Closed his mouth. Pulled Jon's glasses from his face, then took his own off to join them on the side table. When he turned back, Jon was there to meet him, lips parting quickly, shared breaths drawn in long and deep. Jon kissed with clear intent, one hand in Martin's hair and the other delving inside the duvet burrito to lay a palm over his chest.

Jon focused on Martin's physical reactions, trying to keep his mind blank and his Knowing muted. Scratching his fingernails through Martin's wiry chest hair got him a ticklish wriggle; fingernails over a nipple got a short sigh. Jon touched harder, gathering it into a pinch, and Martin downright squirmed, breaking the kiss.

“Er,” Martin said.

“No?”

“Not, uh, not sure. I know this may come as a shock, Jon, but I'm not exactly brimming with experience.”

Jon laughed quietly into Martin's neck.

“My one _real_ boyfriend was – I mean, I sort of knew he was, all along – a, uh. Chubby chaser? Is the phrase. I think.” His voice had gone grotesquely soft with buried shame. Jon couldn't help the trickle of things he now knew – Martin's long, lonely hours with his sharp-tongued mother, his years without a home that wasn't a place of hers in which he merely slept, the awful desperate thirst for affection from a man a few years older, the way that man saw Martin's folds and thighs and round cheeks and thought only about what he could take from them, the way Martin knew, really, that his partner was only seeing his flesh and not _him,_ the way Martin made himself believe that they were the same thing because otherwise he'd go mad with loneliness.

Jon sat up straight and took Martin's face in his hands. “Can I try to make you see something?” he asked.

Sensing Jon's gravity, Martin nodded, eyes locked on his.

So Jon dug down, gathered up a sloppy mess of understanding, and _saw_ it as hard as he could in Martin's direction.

_fingers curl around a mug. hair curls flyaway over an ear, a smile, a plea, a face crumpled in fear and determination and fear and thoughtfulness and fear and love. wiping fogged glasses with a tissue. dedication. fingers curl around a lighter, flick. fingers curl around a stack of papers, fingers rest lightly over a computer mouse in a dim office, fingers chill and limp within scarred brown hands holding too tight, eyes turn up to Jon and **see him**_

Jon blinked and Martin's eyes had welled up with tears. “Sorry,” Jon said quickly, “sorry, Martin -” He despaired that he had a terrible knack for ruining moods.

But without warning Martin's mouth smashed against his and he was being kissed with an unmatched fervor. Jon tried to keep up, hands diving back under the duvet just to hold on for dear life to Martin's sides. The duvet slipped back, baring Martin's shoulders, and Jon pushed it further so he could touch more. He returned to Martin's nipples but didn't pinch this time, just brushed his thumbs over them in light circles. The sound in Martin's throat made Jon certain that it was the right move.

“Tell me what you want me to do,” Jon said in a hurried rush between kisses.

“Anything,” Martin said.

Jon made a frustrated noise. “I need direction.”

“Right. Yeah.” Martin took a shaky breath and Jon realized how red his face had gotten.

Jon asked, “Do you want me to make you?”

Martin nodded quickly.

The compulsion threaded into Jon's voice with an ease that he should probably find more alarming. “Tell me what you want, Martin.”

“Your mouth on my cock,” Martin gasped, voice torn rough from his throat. “Want you to suck me off, Jon, I'm _sorry.”_

“Don't,” Jon all but snapped, making Martin flinch. “Sorry,” Jon said at once. “No, Martin, I only – I don't want you to feel guilty, _please_ don't feel guilty.”

“'M trying,” Martin mumbled, face flaming.

“I'm going to, you know,” Jon told him. “Because you want me to. Deal with it.”

Martin whimpered.

“But I can't guarantee quality,” Jon added. “Never done it before.”

Martin squeaked out something that might be a hysterical laugh. “If it's gonna be, uh, new information, are you sure you aren't going to – uh, go all Linda Blair again?”

“Huh?”

“The Exorcist?”

“Er. I haven't...”

“Seen that one,” Martin said, relaxing a bit. “Well, she lifts off the bed because she's possessed. Not that you're possessed.”

“Define possessed,” Jon muttered.

“And not that you lifted off the bed, either, you just – looked like you might've, for a second. It looked a bit like -” But Martin choked to a halt, going even redder, if that were possible.

Jon stared him down and waited.

“Like, erm, coming,” Martin finished in a rush.

Jon blinked. Did he make some kind of o-face when he fed the Eye? Well, that was unsettling. “Uh,” he said. “Didn't... feel like... that.”

“Oh,” said Martin. “Okay. Good, I think.”

“Statements are addictive but not like, uh – I mean, I know the word _voyeur_ gets thrown around a lot but I don't -”

“Oohh-kay, yeah, it's okay, we can -” Martin took a deep breath. “We can not go down that path, if you'd rather.”

“No! I mean, yes, I would rather – not.”

“Yep,” Martin said with finality. “Yep. No more talk of wanking off the Eye, please.”

Jon snorted with abrupt laughter. Martin watched him, eyes somehow both wide and soft, like the sight of Jon laughing was an artistic masterpiece.

“Mutual handies with the Eye,” Martin said. Jon choked harder, the giggles coming up from somewhere he couldn't control. “Reacharound from the Eye?” Martin suggested, and Jon's stomach muscles were honestly starting to hurt now.

“Stop,” he wheezed, hand on his middle.

Martin laughed then and gathered Jon up onto his lap to hug him. Jon straddled Martin's thighs, laid his face on Martin's shoulder and let the last of the laughter bubble out and slow down until he was just breathing the smell of cheap laundry soap. He turned his head so that Martin's scruffy beginnings of a beard tickled his nose.

“Oh,” Martin sighed. Jon kissed his neck again, his pulse, the hinge of his jaw, remembering that it had felt good. Martin's breath shuddered a bit. “Hi,” he said. “Okay.” Jon nipped at his skin and Martin made a soft sound.

“Now?” Jon asked quietly.

“Now what?”

“Up for it now, I mean.”

Martin _pfft_ ed through closed lips. “Up for something, I reckon.”

Jon snorted. “No puns, during,” he said.

“I can't make that promise.”

“No wordplay,” Jon said, nipping Martin's neck again, “no poetry, no jokes...”

“You're -” Martin gasped and moved under Jon. _“No_ fun.”

“I'm _fun,”_ Jon said. He took one hand out of Martin's curly hair and put it between his legs. Martin was half-mast already and easy to trace and squeeze through his thin boxers. Martin drew in a sharp breath.

Jon decided they'd done enough talking. He wasn't quite sure how to lead into it, so he just pushed himself off Martin's legs and awkwardly knelt in front of the sofa, nudging Martin's knees apart to accommodate him.

“Jesus,” Martin whimpered.

“Off?” Jon asked, plucking at Martin's boxers.

Martin lifted his hips, Jon pulled. Off one ankle, then the other; he dropped the body-warm pants awkwardly to the side, resisting a stupid urge to fold them. Then Martin was naked on the sofa, sitting in a crumpled nest of duvet, blinking owlishly down at Jon.

“Um. Do you want your glasses?” Jon asked.

“What?”

Jon felt the self-conscious blood rushing to his face. “Dunno,” he muttered. “Just wondering.” He looked down from the welcoming comfort of Martin's face to the far less familiar territory in front of him. Penises were a very silly evolutionary move, Jon decided. Something about a penis was inherently absurd.

“I'm fine,” Martin said, and his fingers brushed the top of Jon's head. “And you don't have to do this.”

Jon made a face. “I'm going to at least _try,”_ he said stubbornly, because even if he had nothing else to cling to, he knew his own capacity for digging in his heels. He put his hands on the tops of Martin's thighs, shuffling forward a bit, tamping down nervousness. He took a breath; he smelled only Martin's skin but sharper with musk and trapped sweat. Not bad, just strong. A very human smell. “Can I, um. Skim what you're thinking?” Jon asked. “For feedback?”

“Uh. Sure? Yeah, go ahead.”

Jon nodded. “All right,” he muttered to himself. He took Martin's bare cock in his right hand and got used to the feel of it – hotter and heavier than it looked like it would be, velvety and veined. He opened his perceptions by a crack and got a hot jumbled mess of Martin's arousal, a level of lip-biting, hot-faced restraint far beyond what Jon was expecting. He glanced up and saw Martin's eyes squinted partly shut, as if looking alone was sacrilege.

Jon leaned forward and licked the head.

The door in his head smacked open like a big weight had hit it and all of Martin's gasping years of hopeless fantasy tumbled out like junk from a comically over-packed sitcom closet. Jon blinked hard, vision blurring for a moment, and braced himself against the intensely alien feeling of _wanting._ It stirred him, not between his legs but deep in his chest, and he felt the force of Martin's love cramming into his head and heart until he felt like he'd burst. Outwardly, Martin barely trembled, and Jon didn't have to look up to see that he'd bitten the side of his hand to keep quiet.

The next lick was easier, and the next, and the slide of his palm and then his mouth closed over the head. There had been something off-putting about moving away from Martin's face, because kissing was so very personal but this seemed so very... not. But if a dalliance with an eldritch fear god was good for nothing else, at least Jon could abuse his ability to see in impossible ways; he could see blurred and uncertain visions of Martin's expression, and feel little explosions of what Martin was feeling, like firecrackers in the dark.

He realized that Martin had started moaning and whispering, a hoarse mantra of “oh God, oh God,” broken now and then by a weak “Jon.” On a purely physical level, Jon was sure he wasn't doing much. His technique was not stellar. He didn't take much into his mouth, wasn't quite sure what to do with his tongue, and kept remembering that teeth were a thing right before disaster struck. But Martin was _wrecked._

In truth Jon only managed a sparse handful of minutes before a brush against the roof of his mouth made him gag and lose his enthusiasm. His stubbornness faltered. Once he was off for a breath, he registered the discomfort in his jaw and the strong, unpleasant taste in his mouth, and he found himself unwilling to go back for more. Martin was trembling all over, though, and Jon kept his hand firm around Martin's length, stroking him.

Jon took one of Martin's hands from where it was white-knuckling a handful of duvet and squeezed it for his full attention. Martin looked down, sweat streaking along one temple, face flushed, eyes damp. “Help?” Jon said hoarsely.

“Hhn?” Martin managed.

Jon shoved the image of what he wanted at Martin, hoping the idea came across.

It did. Martin wrapped his hand over Jon's on his cock and took over guiding the pace and pressure. Jon followed Martin's lead, hand sliding slick and easy over the thin coat of spit, and less than a minute later Martin choked out a whimper and came over their joined hands. The bloom of heat rippled into Jon's head like standing near an open oven. Watching Martin's face made the ache in Jon's chest stutter in a strange sort of parallel climax. He wanted to ask if Martin was okay, which he knew was silly, but Martin looked so shattered, so absent...

Jon went to push himself to his feet and remembered the mess. He glanced around for anything useful and found Martin's discarded pants. He wiped his hand on them, cleaned Martin off, and bundled the fabric around the stain. Martin was starting to catch his breath at that point and made a vaguely offended noise, but Jon climbed back onto the sofa next to him and pulled the edge of the duvet up to provide Martin some cover and bundle them close together.

“Okay?” Jon asked.

Martin let out a long breath. “Jon. _Fuck.”_

Jon grinned.

Martin turned towards him, arms wrapping round to pull him close. “You all right?” Martin mumbled, muffled, into Jon's layers of sweaters.

Jon hummed. His jaw was still complaining. “Not my favorite thing to do,” he said, deciding honesty would be the best policy. “Think I'd prefer hands. Rather be able to look at you.”

Martin made a blissed-out noise into Jon's shoulder. “Oh, God. Yeah.”

 _“You_ all right?” Jon prodded.

Martin mumbled something garbled, clearly still high on body chemistry.

“Take that as a yes,” Jon mumbled back, smiling. He pressed his face into Martin's hair.

After a couple of minutes of mindless cuddling, Martin gathered his wits and raised his head. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking adorably concerned.

“You already asked me that,” Jon reminded him.

“Oh.” Martin puffed out a defeated breath. “Did you answer?”

“I'm _fine,_ Martin,” Jon said, trying not to laugh. “ _Some_ how I survived the ordeal.”

Martin's nose wrinkled. “God, was it awful? I should've jumped in the shower first, I didn't think.”

Jon patted Martin's cheek and forced their gazes to meet. “It wasn't awful,” he said firmly. _“You_ aren't awful. I very much enjoyed making you feel good. At some point in the future there is a high probability that I will be interested in making you feel good again. No, I'm not aroused, and I'd like to go brush my teeth in a moment, but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. Answer comprehensive enough?”

Cheeks pink, mouth fixed in a stupid little smile, Martin nodded. Jon kissed him, relatively chaste all things considered. They stayed there for a while, Martin moving down to lavish lazy kisses on Jon's neck, fingers toying with the end of his braid.

At length Jon ran a hand over Martin's arm and noticed a raised patina of goose pimples. The duvet corner pulled up over Martin's hip wasn't covering much of him, and the room was chilly. “Cold?” Jon asked.

Martin sighed. “Yeah. I should get dressed.”

Jon scooted off the edge of the duvet and bundled it towards Martin, who wrapped up against the chill to shuffle back to the little bedroom. The short curls of hair at the nape of his neck were still dark with sweat and clung to his pale, freckled skin. Jon watched him go and ran his tongue over his teeth, pondering what he'd just done with lingering disbelief. A smile played at his mouth.

While Martin rummaged for clothes, Jon got up (briefly realized he could have offered Martin his hoodie back, then decided he didn't feel like parting with it) and went to brush his teeth. He wandered back to the kitchen to rinse dinner dishes and put the kettle on, and had just gotten the tea out when he heard Martin's footfalls behind him. Arms wrapped around him from behind, clad in a mustard yellow sweater with frayed cuffs.

“Need to do laundry,” Martin mumbled near Jon's ear. “Wearing my last clean pair of pants.”

“I promise not to ruin them,” Jon said, pouring scalding water into two mugs. “Nearly out of tea as well.”

“I'll head down to the village in the morning.”

“I'll go with you.”

“But... people...?”

Jon had been staying reclusive since they'd arrived at the safe house. Martin blended in to the little highland town in a way Jon would certainly not, by skin color alone, without even bringing in the factors of his extensive scarring, skittish demeanor, and tendency to stare. It wasn't that he thought it was unsafe, really – Basira had sworn up and down that there was no reason to worry as long as they didn't go further afield than the local village – but that the prospect of dealing with _people_ was just. Too much.

But it had been two weeks, and he felt the itch to stretch his legs if nothing else. He was feeling far more put together than he had been a fortnight ago. Maybe clean highland air really did do a body good, who knew?

“It's a lot to carry,” Jon said. “All the washing and shopping. And you've made it sound – nice. The people, I mean. I wouldn't mind seeing a few friendly faces.”

Martin hummed, sounding pleased but cautious. “All right,” he said. “But it's not really all that much to carry, so if you do need to do a strategic retreat, don't feel like you have to stay.”

Jon put his hand on Martin's, closed his eyes and gave himself up to the pure ache. This simple little place, full of simple things and easy answers, every tiny problem whispered away with a kind solution. Jon stopped thinking at all for long minutes in which the tea steeped and Martin breathed against his back and the chill air tickled his sinuses and the boards under their feet gently creaked.

Had he ever known goodness like this before? He believed Gerry Keay's hypothesis that there were no grand powers of Good to counter the dread ones. But maybe it was because there couldn't be – because no force of manipulation or coercion could maneuver a person into this place of truth. Maybe the only way love could truly exist was for it to be chosen, uninfluenced, against horrific odds.

Jon stood there and loved. It hurt. It was one of the best things he'd ever felt.

“Cards?” he said at last, voice hoarse.

-

A week later, Martin returned from the village with a package of statements.

-

**Author's Note:**

> Points of note:  
> -I love the many trans and nonbinary versions of Jon and Martin so, so much. I've only written them both as cis men because I am a cis woman and I feel like, in terms of bodily experiences I have not felt and cannot fully understand, it's more okay for me to muck around with and potentially screw up cis male bodies than trans bodies.  
> -I am ace, with a low libido, and not sex-repulsed. Is it projection time? It's projection time baybee!!  
> -This began from me projecting my personal experience of kissing. Seems fake. Wet. Redeem X number of intimacy points for like a handshake but mouths. All of humanity might be gaslighting me. Probably okay with practice.  
> -I'm fat and I have so many Martin self-image feelings I can't even breathe, you guys  
> -h e l p


End file.
